A conveyor device is used in a delivery center of a home delivery company or a post office. As the conveyor device, there are known a roller conveyor device in which cylindrical conveying rollers are arranged along a conveyance line, a belt conveyor device in which a conveying belt is mounted in a stretched state, and the like.
Further, as a control system of the conveyor device, there is known a distributed control system (Patent Document 1). In the distributed control system, a plurality of zone conveyors are arranged in series to form a continuous conveying path. Each zone conveyor is provided with an independent motor. Further, each zone conveyor is provided with a zone controller, and the zone controller manages/controls the corresponding zone conveyor.
The zone controller outputs a motor drive signal and receives a signal from a load presence sensor provided in each zone.
Further, the zone controller is provided with a communication function and exchanges a signal with the adjacent zone controllers.
For example, information indicating an ON/OFF state of the load presence sensor or information indicating whether or not the motor is activated is exchanged between adjacent zone controllers.
For example, when a predetermined condition is satisfied that a conveying object is present in the corresponding zone and a conveying object is not present in a zone on the downstream side, the zone controller activates the motor of the corresponding zone to convey the conveying object to the downstream side zone.
The distributed control type conveyor device has an advantage that a layout can easily be changed. For example, when an overall length of the conveyor device is to be extended, a new zone conveyor is mounted to an end or middle portion of the existing conveyor device. On the other hand, when the overall length of the conveyor device is to be reduced, any of the zone conveyors may be removed, and a generated space may be eliminated.